


domesticity

by iwastetimechasingcars



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: 1920s AU, M/M, Multi Chapter, and marco is a cute librarian, but really gay, hes like the fresh prince of bel air, i dont know exactly where this fic is going but oh well at least im saving the college au for later, i worked hard on this for like the first 4k words, idk man, in the first chapter marco gets pretty wasted, in which jean is working for important people, mostly about how marcos life gets flipped turned upside down, mostly eremarco tho, slight erejeanmarco bc who isnt a hoe for erejeanmarco, then i just
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:01:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwastetimechasingcars/pseuds/iwastetimechasingcars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marco was probably going to blame the alcohol for his behavior when he woke up in the morning and fully questioned his actions. He was probably going to blame the marijuana for the way he laughed at anything Jean said. But right here, right now, he was going to blame the way that Jean’s arm moved around his waist just right or how soft Jean’s hair was between Marco’s fingers or how Jean smelled like the scotch and Marco thought he was getting drunk all over again. </p>
<p>Right here, right now is where Marco wanted to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	domesticity

**Author's Note:**

  * For [southspinner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/southspinner/gifts).



> boi  
> this took a lot longer than i expected haaa  
> ngl this was originally going to turn into an art thief au but theres too much pain in the jeanmarco fandom for that  
> so i hope you like this one??  
> i wanted a light hearted and sweet fic and i hope i can maintain that ayyy  
> anyways enjoy everyone!
> 
> southspinner, i fell in love with both the novel and the movie for the great gatsby and while i didn't necessarily follow the prompt i do hope you enjoy it!!

There were colors and sounds everywhere.

He’d never seen so much color in a single place. Not this much color. Not this vibrant.

Maybe it was the fake alcohol he drank that was making him love every moment of this. Or the cigars he was smoking by claiming drags from strangers who didn’t mind because they were all at this amazing place with this amazing party. Or maybe it was the sweat of mingling bodies that usually he would shy from, but tonight he was too hyped up to care.

There were beautiful people everywhere. Anywhere he turned there was another pretty face beaming at nothing in particular except they were _here. Right here, right now. Just like he was._ He was in the same _right here, right now._ He was in the same moment where he felt infinite possibilities and for so long he is ashamed to say he didn’t believe moments like this could ever happen.

“Marco!” he was surprised he could hear his own name over the sounds of everything. Over the sounds of lively chatter. Over the clinking champagne glasses. Over an enthusiastic trumpet player. Over laughter and over his own astonishment.

He didn’t want to look for a voice. That would mean he was still in a reality in which Marco Bodt had a life. A life with responsibilities. A life where he worked in a library and would have never dreamed of sneaking out to go to a party like some scandalous teenager.

He was in awe. Absolute awe. In a life where Marco thought he was moving too slow to be a part of, this party seems to stop time everywhere else but _right here, right now._

“Marco!” There’s a hand on his shoulder, and he is obligated to look to it owner. It was Christa. She looked stunning and ravishing and beautiful all at once. Her blonde waves caressed her delicate face, pinkening with each ounce of the bootleg liquor she drank. Her dress was short, and he’s sure her father would hang her for wearing that in such an outrageous event, but it suits her wonderfully, and he can’t think of another time where she looked so happy. “I’m so glad you were able to make it!”

She says this as if the party is her own, Marco notices. And maybe it is. He doesn’t know.  He doesn’t think anybody really knows. He doesn’t think it is, personally. Christa, though small and powerful, wasn’t the kind to be able to throw a party of this feat. Christa was showtunes and an innocent face, not someone who distributed alcohol through prohibition at an extravagant party.

“It’s absolutely wonderful, Christa!” He bent down a bit to get closer in her ear and shouted in an attempt to be heard. Her face beamed. “Everything is so amazing! Thank you for inviting me!”

Amazing seemed to be the only word he could come up with at everything around him. He was in absolute awe. It was a life where Marco was able to find words for anything, and now, _right here, right now_ , he was speechless.

Christa must have heard something, because she turns her head away from Marco to look behind her, and offers a small wave. She turns back, taking another sip of her alcohol, with a smile on her face. “I have to go!” she tells him. “Go upstairs! There’s more magic up there!” She stands up on her tiptoes and plants a chaste kiss on Marco’s cheek. “Just be careful with the tea!” With that, she turns back around and disappears into the crowd.

He isn’t sure what she means by that. He feels he should, being in a place of books so often, that it only makes sense if he could identify euphemisms or denotative definitions just based on the context clues. Maybe it was the alcohol.

But then Marco is in awe again. The ceiling on this floor already seems impossibly high and spacious and still, it managed to make the party absolutely dazzling. _The staircase must lead to heaven_ , he thought.

He grabs another glass of the alcohol and as he fingers the rim of the glass slowly as he walks to the stairs, and then has to stop to grab on to the rail. It was beautiful. It _is_ beautiful. He sees things in a beautiful sheen and he thinks it’s the beer goggles but he wants it to be real. He wants to live in a world where things are this beautiful every night.

And then he’s at the top. And Christa is right. It was magic.

It’s a whole different world from the one on the first floor.

The first floor had innocence and illegal alcohol and short skirts and swing jazz that Marco wanted to dance to. With bright colors and bright faces and bright sounds and Marco felt so _righteous_ down there.

Up here, it is a new _right here, right now_. With harder liquor and beautiful women who wore dresses and lipstick and knew they were powerful in their own right. With a floor to ceiling bookshelf stacked and stuffed and crammed with reading material that rivaled that of the library he worked at. He saw no clear organization in the library from what he noticed, and to his surprise, he didn’t want to alphabetize and order according to the dewey decimal system.

Right now, he wanted some of the scotch being passed around in a silver flask instead of his piss poor glass he had in hand.

One of the women see him eyeing it. She’s one of the women that are radiating power, and to an extent, it intimidates Marco. Dark hair frames a beautifully pale face, and a striking silver dress gleams with each slight movement and, though she is sitting, Marco knows it fits her beautifully. With a nonchalant gleam in her eyes, she lifts the flask over to him as if to offer him some. Marco smiles and walks over, leaving the glass on the closest end table he sees, tipping his hat in gratitude as he grabs the flask and takes a sip.

This wasn’t bootleg alcohol, and he’d thought he’d seen the last days of real alcohol in the country, but tonight, _right here, right now,_ on the second floor, there was real alcohol.

He isn’t cold, but the alcohol leaves him feeling warmer than the fake downstairs. It was years since prohibition was in effect, but he remembers how it leaves him feeling.

“Thank you,” he tells her, passing back the flask. She takes another sip from it before capping it, and when she pulls away, he notices the lipstick stains left on the rim and decides if there was a single image of this party used to document the second floor, her lipstick stain would be it.

She looked familiar. Familiar in the way that she was a star, but it strikes Marco that nobody so important wouldn’t need to drink from a flask. At least not in the second floor.

He looked away from her, and around to everyone else. They each looked like gang leaders in their own respects. The men, with pinstripes and jawlines that could probably cut through butter, were equal to the women on the floor. The women were well aware of this, and used it to their advantage in any way they can. In more ways than one, it was as if the men were the gang members and the women were the leaders.

It was methodical, and maybe that’s why Christa called this floor magic. Up here, she didn’t have a strict father.

“Here,” The dark-haired women had a cigar in her hands, and trail of smoke wisps came off the lit end.

Marco grabbed the cigar, and looked to her again. She was surrounded by other men who were up to her level in status; he knew it. They each looked too beautiful and too confident. Marco could never be used to a group like his. They each watched him expectantly.

Eager to impress, Marco took a drag of the cigar. Too quickly, and not nicotine. Surprised, Marco passed the cigar back to beautiful woman on his left in an attempt to control his coughing fit. Tears well up in his eyes, and from the corner, he sees a smile peek from her face as she takes a long drag before passing it to the man next to her.

_Be careful with the tea._

Christa had meant marijuana. There were marijuana blunts being passed around like candy, and he hadn’t used the context clues to realize what she meant.

He blamed the alcohol.

The friends-- honestly, Marco wasn’t sure if they could be called friends. Did they know each other? Just acquainted?-- bellowed in laughter at this. Marco wasn’t sober enough to feel any embarrassment. Quite the opposite. The whole situation made him laugh in between bouts of coughs. He wasn’t sure what the joke was, or why it was so funny, but he loved being a part of it.

“Piece of work there, Mikasa. Real art.” Marco could see the man who spoke from the corner of his eyes. He was the shortest men out of all of them there, with a shaved head, but twirled a bowler’s cap between his hands. “Where’d you pick him up?”

“He came from downstairs.” Beautiful woman Mikasa told him. She looked over to Marco, raising an eyebrow as he righted himself and finished his coughing.

The group around Mikasa all looked over to him, surprise and hunger etched on each of their facial features. He didn’t need booze in his system to notice this, not in this city. For a moment, he feared for his safety, but it passed over him as he stood up to his full height with a friendly smile on his face, and they smiled back to him.

“Got a name, artwork?” said the man on the other side of Mikasa. He wore pinstripe pants, with a matching vest, not unlike the other men on the floor, but he had a clear disposition of comfort on this floor. Close to him, Marco felt underdressed in his jumper. With the fat drug in his hand, he takes another drag, slow and steady, letting it fill up his body and breathes out, releasing it in a cloud of smoke. He passes it to the man with the shaved head, who stops twirling his hat in order to smoke it.

Marco blushed at being called artwork, but hoped that they would mistake it for the alcohol warming him up. They probably didn’t. “Marco,” he said, stepping closer into the circle. “Marco Bodt.”

“Do you come here often, Marco Bodt?” said another man standing next to the man with the shaved head (and now that he thought of it, the shaved head man could be Al Capone, if Al Capone had went on an weightloss adventure and escaped from prison.). He was dressed much more simply, with plain slacks, a plain white dress shirt, and plain gray suspenders. He is passed the tea, and allows himself a quick smoke, before leaving it to Mikasa’s outstretched hands.

His simplicity did not take away from his beauty, clearly. If anything, it added to it. His darb clothing was clearly something much nicer than Marco would be able to buy on his own, but on him, it accentuated everything that needed to be accentuated. It was a statement, Marco was sure of it. A statement of _I’d rather you look at my pretty face._

And that he was. Very pretty. Two-toned hair was an oddity, and that, too managed to create the illusion that his jawline was the sharpest thing right behind the shiv he probably had tucked away in his back pocket. His narrow eyes managed to be impossibly expressive, and Marco was adoring each of his features. Every sharp edge and rounded corner of his stature, from the bend of his elbows, the curve of his lips, to the hands that disappeared into his pockets.

“This is my first time here.” Marco said sheepishly. “My friend got invited and she in turn invited me.”

“Where’s your friend?” He raised his eyebrows curiously and made a show of looking for someone who was with him. “I’m Jean.”

“I think she’s still downstairs.” Marco said. He furrowed his eyebrows together, as if he can’t remember whether Christa came upstairs with him or not. _No_ , he told himself, _She said there’s more magic up here. She stayed down there._

The man standing next to Mikasa smirked. “Did you leave her to join up here?” He ran a hand through his brown hair, sparing a glance to Jean, and slipped a hand into his pocket, pulling out a dented silver flask. “Marco Bodt, I’m Eren Jaeger.”

Marco smiled at Eren as he drank from the flask, never breaking eye contact from the swig that caused Eren to bring his head back, to the straightening out as he capped it. With his free hand, he grabs the tea from Mikasa, and with a challenging gaze to Marco, he takes another long drag. Marco was, at the very moment this happened, equal parts buzzed, intrigued, and aroused.

“No,” Marco said. He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “She stayed downstairs.” Mikasa uncrossed her legs and stood up, the dress cascading down and smoothing itself out with such a light material. Marco was right. It fit her beautifully. She reaches over to Eren, taking back the tea, and takes another drag.

“If you have a girlfriend, you should bring her up here, Marco.” The man with the shaved head said. “I’m Connie. I introduced my girlfriend to them at a party like this.”

Marco flushed, and again, he hoped they thought it was from alcohol, and began to fan his face with his hat, as if that would trick them. “I-I’m not in a relationship.” Marco shook his head, dropping his gaze to his feet. He wasn’t on any romantic endeavors. He was on secondhand smoke and bootleg alcohol and currently, his only endeavor was to have fun. Mikasa offers the blunt to Marco, and with the idea of endeavors for fun on his mind, he takes it without a second thought.

Across from him, Jean glances over at him as he says this. He takes out his silver flask and gives it a shake. With a slight pout, Jean puts it back in his pocket and looks around. “I’m on a scotch run. Who needs a refill?” Like clockwork, Mikasa, Eren, and Connie each take out their flasks and give it a light shake. Connie and Mikasa pass their flasks to Jean, who pocket them. Eren watches Marco with a curious eye, causing Jean to watch the freckled man as he eyed the blunt.

Marco raised it to his lips, breathing in slowly, more prepared for it this time, and lets it out in a long huff. He could smell the distinct aroma in the air around him, and in that moment, Marco realized he loved marijuana. He looks up at the four in front of them, and passes it back to Mikasa, a grin of triumph resting lightly on his lips.

Jean steps forward, and takes the hat out of Marco’s hand, and places it on his own head. In the haze of marijuana and liquor, bootleg or otherwise, Marco let it happen. “Nicely done, artwork.” Jean says, before slipping between him and Mikasa to go refill the flasks.

Once Jean is gone, Eren scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Jean is not very subtle when he’s high.” He slips his hand back into his pocket and grabs his flask. “Damn-- I’m running low.”

Mikasa lets out another puff of smoke, and for a moment, Marco in entranced by the artwork of red lips and the gray smoke that she created. “Jean offered to fill it up.” She says. She passes the marijuana to Connie, who places his hat on his head to smoke. “It’s your fault for not paying attention.”

Eren turned a light shade of pink, and glanced at Marco, before glancing away. “I’ll be right back.” He grumbled, before stuffing his hands back in his pockets and leaving.

Connie breathes out with a loud sigh. “It’s good to be here and be high.” He smiles broadly at Marco and Mikasa. “First time or not, it’s good to be here.”

Marco couldn’t help but agree. He was absolutely on top of the world. This was the moment he knew that nothing in his mediocre life could top. Here, with beautiful men and beautiful women, creating divine wisps of ethereal smoke. Here, with _real_ alcohol, and real expectations. He was here. He was _right here, right now._

“Who throws these parties?” Marco asks. He looks at the looming wall of stacked books again. “It’s so--”

Connie threw his head back with a laugh. “That’s such a domestic question.”

If Marco hadn’t had a smoke, if he hadn’t had a combination of bootleg liquor and authentic scotch, if he hadn’t been on the second floor, he was sure he’d be a bit hurt. _Domestic_ was the way he lived. _Domestic_ life. _Domestic_ job. _Domestic. Right here, right now,_ with the people who looked and smelled and acted like they were a million bucks, he felt anything but _domestic_.

“His name is Smith.” Mikasa said. She looked into the crowd, hoping to find either Jean or Eren on their crusade for scotch. “This is officially the Ackerman house, but Smith is the man in charge of all of this.”

_Smith_.

The name lingered on the tip of his tongue for a moment, before he feels the familiar cold metal of a flask pressed into his hand. Jean gives him a wink and hands two other flasks to Mikasa and Connie.

“I almost got hit in the face to fill these up.” Jean said, raising his own flask.

“You wouldn’t have minded, Jean.” Connie teased. “You live for the thrill of fighting.”

Jean makes eye contact with Marco, and offers a shrug, before taking a chug from his flask.

Marco looks down at the flask in his hand, and imagines it in his room, tucked away under his pillow for future memories. With a smile to Jean, he raised the flask as if to toast him, and takes a small drink. In his opinion, it tasted better from his own flask than that of a beautiful woman.

Eren returns, and becomes comfortably situated between Mikasa and Marco, with the flask in hand.  

“Did you have to deal with with that old man to get to these, too?” Eren raises his flask in Jean’s direction. For a moment, Jean stayed quiet, as if he couldn’t remember if he had or not.

“There’s a stash behind one of the bookshelves in the study. Handled by some Italian.” Jean shrugged. “He’s got better stuff if you ask the right questions.”

Eren looks as if he had been cheated. “I’ve been dealing with that old man for _months,_ and you haven’t told me about the Italian before?” He raises his voice to be heard over the downstairs party.

“Eren, relax.” Mikasa told him. She led the marijuana up to her mouth, but realizing how short the blunt was, dropped it on the tile floor, and put it out with the tip of her heel.

Eren let out a huff, and took a drink from his flask.

Marco took everyone of their interactions in. From Connie twirling his bowler cap, to Mikasa smoking as much as she could. To Jean withholding valuable information, and Eren being angry about it.

And maybe it was the combination of alcohol with drugs, or maybe just one of those (Marco couldn’t tell and he didn’t care to), but he began to laugh. _Domestic._

The word he would have normally cringed about was right in front of him in the four of beautiful people. There was a domesticity with their actions and the way they fed off of eachother’s energy. It was a close knit group of friends, whose reactions are shown through body language and alcohol runs and sharing a blunt between each other.

His laughs became more boisterous, but he couldn’t control it. He was domestic and they were domestic in a place that was the exact opposite and though he was buzzed and high, Marco was glad there was a connection from him to _right here, right now._ There was no feigning that he would belong after drinking enough alcohol, fake or otherwise, It’s too soon to tell, he knows that definitely, but his connection to them as he stands alongside them is there for now and is all he needs to stop any kind of hesitation to stay home that he felt before being up here. He wanted to stay in a semipermanence of money and booze and swing jazz and beautiful people with their beautiful smiles.

“A real piece of art, Mikasa.” Connie says. A small smile cracks on her face as Marco quiets down.

* * *

 

Through the intoxicated state Marco finds himself in, he can see Jean from the corner of his eye. Jean is half heartedly listening to his friends He’s been smoking and drinking all night, but he still seems oddly sober.

Marco has been upstairs with them for hours. He’s seen Connie get whisked away by a young woman with gorgeous pigmentation in her skin and long hair in a ponytail. He’s been gone for hour, and Mikasa, Eren, and Jean seem unfazed by this.

He wanted to know more about these fascinating and beautiful people. He wanted to know what they did for a living-- or how they knew each other. But at the same time he didn’t quite want to be placed in a different reality that _right here, right now._

“How old are you Marco?” Eren slides up close to him on the couch. Their knees and elbows touch and Eren leans into Marco.

“Twenty-two.” Marco states. He looks at Eren as a surprised huff escapes his lips. Eren leans back into the cushions of the couch and takes a drink from his flask.

“You’re younger than I thought you’d be.” From this close, Marco can see the places on Eren’s face where he nicked himself with a razor earlier that day. It adds a certain beauty that leaves room for each of his imperfections. Marco knows he's staring at the brunette but he can’t necessarily help it.

“Do you come to these parties often?” Marco asks him. He shifts on the couch to be able to face Eren properly. Eren nods his head to Jean. Marco tears his eyes away from Eren and toward Jean. He leans on the edge of the couch and holds his flask but makes no move to drink from it.

“He gets the invites.” Eren says. “Jean works for Ackerman.”

_Ackerman and Smith._ He recognizes those names again as important people but he can’t be quite sure from where. From a book he read? Newspaper reporters?

Any thought of domesticity that Marco had that night went straight through his mind and all he could think was he needed more alcohol. Eren eyes Marco as he throws his head back and finishes what was in his flask. Tears well up in Marco’s eyes as the alcohol scrapes his throat. Eren chuckles at him and takes a sip of his own flask.

Eren raises an eyebrow. “You okay artwork?”

Marco flips the lid on the flask and leans too close into Eren. “The greatest I’ve been in a long time.”

Eren’s hand waver over Marco’s head momentarily, dancing around the temptation to play with a strand of his hair. When he allows himself the luxury, Marco peels himself off of Eren and is off the couch.

“Jean,” Marco says as he walks next to him. Jean snaps out of the half-fantasy he visited and came back to the party. He shakes his flask as an attempt to sign to him that he wanted more alcohol. Jean extends his arm to grab the flask. “Can you take me to refill my flask?”

 

* * *

 

Somewhere between the couch with Eren and finding the Italian for a refill, Marco and Jean got sidetracked. Neither could quite tell you exactly where they did, or where the flasks they were holding went, but truthfully, they didn’t particularly care.

Marco was probably going to blame the alcohol for his behavior when he woke up in the morning and fully questioned his actions. He was probably going to blame the marijuana for the way he laughed at anything Jean said. But _right here, right now_ , he was going to blame the way that Jean’s arm moved around his waist just right or how soft Jean’s hair was between Marco’s fingers or how Jean smelled like the scotch and Marco thought he was getting drunk all over again.

“You taste like the champagne from downstairs.” Marco mumbles against his lips. He’s sweating and it's a mix of the tight space they were in and all the booze he filled himself with the entire night and Jean’s body heat and the ridiculous amount of clothes they still had on. He’s hypersensitive to every finger tracing down his body and he feels every slight movement that Jean makes. A thought in the back of his mind tells him that Jean was well practiced in this art, and _boy_ , is he glad for that.

“You’ve been drinking a lot.” Jean tells him. He dips on to Marco’s neck, pulling back the collar of his white shirt slightly. “But so have I. I usually go to dinner before I move onto anything like this-- in a closet no less.”

Marco hums as Jean presses his lips against his neck. He feels electricity in the friction of their bodies and the last sober part of Marco wants the electricity to be there when they don’t have alcohol in their system. That sober part recognizes how strangely tangible and attached to the ground Jean is.

“Do you really want to go to dinner?” Marco asks him. Jean’s hand flit around the hem of his shirt and his thumb hooks onto the belt loop of his trousers. “How are you so sober?”

“How about I invite you to the next party instead.” He pulls away slightly only to look Marco in the face. He is flushed but his freckles are still prominent against his skin and the mere proximity of their faces doesn’t seem to register in his eyes. All Marco wants is to kiss him, _right here, right now._ “We’ll be on the second floor.”

**Author's Note:**

> my life source is attention and positive reinforcement so feel free to drop a comment or a kudos or recommendations to get better at writing 
> 
> in related news i really hope you enjoyed reading this!!
> 
> i have a tumblr here: http://pretty-boyoikawa.tumblr.com/


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